Pablo Messineo, one of the archaeologists, said the strange discovery was made by Juan de Dios Sota, a farmer who was taking his cows out for a graze when he spotted the shapes of the shells.
He quickly established that they weren’t any ordinary animal, and alerted the scientists, who arrived in short order. Well, they were like gigantic armadillos that were, at one stage, found all across Latin America, having developed about 20 million years ago.
Much like their descendants these days, they possessed a large, tough shell that protected them from all sorts of dangers. The use of the word ‘gigantic’ in this case isn’t an exaggeration.
Glyptodonts could grow to around the size of a car, reaching as much as 10 feet long. Imagine a 10-foot-long armadillo. It’s a damn shame they no longer exist, because they sound absolutely badass.
Fear not, though. The creatures were gentle giants, and were completely herbivorous. Unfortunately, it is thought that they bit the dust at the start of the last ice age.